On the September 10, 2026, broadcast of “Today,” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie referred to her missing mother, Nancy Guthrie, in the past tense — seven months into a search that appears to have stalled.
It came during an upbeat stretch of the show. The hosts had just announced a live episode to be filmed in County Kerry, Ireland, and Guthrie brought up her own family.
“My mother’s family w-, my mother was Irish, her grandmother,” Guthrie said. “They were from Galway.”
The other hosts went quiet. Seated between co-hosts Al Roker and Craig Melvin, with the rest of the morning show crew around her, Guthrie kept her smile and her energy, then handed the conversation to fellow host Carson Daly: “You have some Irish, right?”
Viewers noticed the tense. A source close to “Today” and to Guthrie said her use of the past tense was not an acknowledgment that Nancy Guthrie had died.
Missing Since February 1
Nancy Guthrie, 84, lived alone north of Tucson, Arizona. She was reported missing around noon on February 1 after failing to appear at a virtual church service. The last time anyone saw her was the evening before, when her son-in-law dropped her at home following dinner at her daughter Annie Guthrie’s house. Investigators found blood matching her DNA inside the home, and surveillance video showed a masked, armed person on her porch the morning she vanished. More than a week after she disappeared, the FBI released footage of a masked stranger recorded by a camera at her front door. Blood was also found on the porch.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office said it believed someone took her, possibly in the middle of the night, and the office was treating kidnapping or abduction as possibilities. Investigators had not identified a suspect or a person of interest, the office said in a February 4 statement, and authorities said they had no credible information indicating a possible abduction was a targeted incident. Detectives reportedly considered turning to genealogy databases to search DNA evidence, and they worked with Walmart on backpack leads.
Volunteers and search crews spent the weeks after her disappearance pushing through desert terrain thick with cacti, bushes and boulders. A separate group searched near the Arizona-Mexico border and did not report finding her.
Two Notes and a Deadline
Savannah Guthrie posted a 20-second video on February 7, sitting beside her brother, Camron Guthrie, and her sister, Annie Guthrie, holding her siblings’ hands. A message had reached the family, she said; she pleaded for her mother’s return and said the family would pay.
A possible ransom note had reached at least three news organizations, though no law enforcement agency had substantiated it.
Tucson television station KOLD received two notes — the first through the station’s news tips system on February 2, the second just before noon on February 6. KOLD news director Jessica Bobula told NBC News that the first note carried two deadlines and a request for funds, and that it indicated Guthrie could be harmed. The second demanded no money and differed from the first in nearly every respect, she said, though its author seemed to be trying to establish that both messages came from the same sender. The station handed both notes to the sheriff’s office, along with the IP information.
Once the notes became public, KOLD said two had come in — one demanded millions in Bitcoin in exchange for Guthrie’s return, and the other said she had died. Law enforcement sources said one note claimed her abductors never intended for her to die, though her death came soon after she vanished.
Holding a tissue in her left hand at the “Today” desk in New York, Savannah Guthrie said she would not comment on NBC News’ coverage of the case, and she used the moment instead to urge anyone with information to speak to investigators. The family was in agony, she said, and would never stop looking for her mother. The sheriff’s office referred those questions to the FBI.
Where the Search Stands
Guthrie was back at the “Today” anchor desk on April 6, more than two months after her mother disappeared, and she has said little about the case since. She has asked the public to raise their prayers alongside the family, and has said her mother might be in heaven, dancing with her father.
In August, she posted an Instagram message addressed to her mother’s kidnappers. Every day, she wrote, the family wakes up and tries to be strong and go on, because that is what their joyful and resilient mother taught them to do. “But make no mistake — our hearts are in ruins,” she wrote.
In a direct message to the kidnappers, she said: “I’m coming to you today with a very specific message.” She went on: “It has been months since our mom was taken from us. Our family is in agony—we are in a nightmare that will not end. Nothing about our situation has changed.” She also said: “The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place and I know that you have tried to do things the right way.”
Remains discovered near Nancy Guthrie’s home were reported not to be connected to the case “at this time.”
The sheriff’s office describes the investigation as active and ongoing and says it is working with the FBI. Laboratories across the country are still supporting DNA and video analysis, the office said in a September 10 statement, adding that advances in technology are aiding the work and that tips keep arriving and are being reviewed. The family has put up a $1 million reward for tips that lead to Nancy Guthrie’s “miracle” return.
On Tuesday, September 15, five days after the Ireland segment, Guthrie issued a renewed public plea about her mother’s disappearance — the most recent public appeal reported in the case.
